Connection: Primary Concern

Washington state tried to leapfrog to the front of the presidential election calendar this year.

But the jump to Feb. 29 may do nothing to turn the lightly attended election into an important presidential event.

In fact, it helped assure that this primary will do less to select the president than ever before.

Democrats will continue to ignore an election which the public supports but the party dislikes. Republicans, meanwhile, will give less weight to the primary than they did in 1996.

In 1992, Washington state held its first presidential primary in May. By then, Bill Clinton and George Bush were already selected as their parties’ nominees and the parties had already started selecting delegates. Four years ago, the state moved the primary to late March, only to be eclipsed in the national media spotlight by the much larger California primary the same day.

This year, with the California primary on March 7, Secretary of State Ralph Munro set the Washington vote for Feb. 29, hoping to draw candidates to Washington before they campaign full-time in the Golden State.

But national Democratic rules don’t allow delegates to be selected before March 7 in most states. So Washington Democrats will use precinct caucuses on that date to divide the party’s 65 “pledged” delegates.

Jim Kainber, the state party’s executive director, said the Democratic National Committee refused an exemption for Washington when the primary was moved to Feb. 29. The state party hopes to get the rules changed for 2004 to use primary results to select at least some delegates.

Washington state Republicans will select one-third of their 37 delegates based on the results of the primary, and two-thirds on the results of the caucuses.

Four years ago, they chose half their delegates based on the primary and half from the caucuses.

In Idaho, the presidential selection starts on different dates for the different parties.

Democrats will caucus in each county March 7 to decide how to divide up 23 delegates to nominate the president. Republicans will use the May 23 primary to choose 80 percent of their 28 delegates, and the remainder will be selected at their state convention June 23 and 24.